


Stars on Earth

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [43]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 03:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: He loves the little things. The strings of lights in the streets, a cup of coffee, an old coat, and a scruffy kiss.





	Stars on Earth

**Author's Note:**

> for the winter themed day of [hellion holidays](https://nyxnoctocalypse.tumblr.com/post/168592900572/tis-the-season). and an early christmas present from me to all of you.

It was so easy to be in love.

He didn’t know just how simple it could be until it found him. And he didn’t know that he’d been hiding from it until it did.

He’d made it so much more complicated than it needed to be. He’d been so afraid to show himself from behind the shadow of his name. It was all he had ever wanted, all he had ever begged for to the phantom deities that kept him company in his dreams. But he’d never been brave enough or strong enough to take it for himself in the morning. When he awoke, it was always to an empty room, too big for one person. It was always to silence and cold – no matter the state-of-the-art systems, no matter the season.

All he ever wanted was a companion. All he’d ever wanted was his father to smooth a warm hand against his face when he couldn’t sleep and to be there when he woke up to know he didn’t abandon him to the daemons during the night. All he’d ever wanted was a friend, was Ignis, for a long time. A pillow for all of his aches, a tissue for all of his tears when the scars hurt too much, a confessional for fears even scarier than the Marilith and the MTs – fears of whether or not his father still loved him, fears that the world he’d wanted to explore so badly wanted to hurt him, fears that no one would want to be his friend if he couldn’t stand up to play with them.

Beds had been his nightmare. They were supposed to be his haven.

He would try to sleep anywhere but in bed once he had his own place. Even though the apartment was smaller than his suite at the Citadel, the bed still felt too big. Too lonely. And he craved an intimacy he couldn’t find the courage to ask of anyone. Not Ignis, not Gladio, not Prompto. They already did so much for him. He couldn’t ask them for any more.

He wanted a guardian, and he knew he was too old to be so scared of his nightmares that he couldn’t sleep alone.

It had been winter when he asked a stranger in the hallway to sleep with him.

Just next to him.

Just sit with him until he fell asleep.

Just stay with him long enough to dream.

Never once thinking it would happen again. Or again after that. He slept so well that he would make any excuse to sleepover at the Citadel more than his own apartment.

He knew that it was silly. He knew that they could both be condemned for it, in one way or another. But it was all he wanted. Just a little thing. _Little king._

Warm lips grazed his neck. And he heard his voice closer than the distance of time since that first night. It had taken him so much to ask then. Now, it took nothing.

“You’re too far away,” Nyx groused against his throat, the tickle of his scruff a timeless scrape of satisfaction for his skin. “Where are you?”

“A long time ago. Yet, not at all.”

“Is that supposed to be some kind of riddle? I’m a humble foot-soldier, don’t expect too much out of me this early in the morning.”

Noctis smiled, tilting his head to the side so Nyx could kiss where he liked. There was snow on the city. It was framed like a picture in the tiny window. Winter was kinder now than it had been. It was warmer in the little apartment than in his too-big rooms.

And the bed was _theirs._ Not his. He wasn’t alone when he tried to escape the world each night. He wasn’t scrambling for more covers, wasn’t sweating when they were too much, wasn’t jerking up in the middle of the night and tearing at his hair because he wanted someone to touch him and tell him it was alright, but all he had was his own hands. He wasn’t clawing at the pillows to bury his screams and dry his tears and hugging his knees to his chest to try and make himself too small for the daemons to find.

They couldn’t fit in Nyx’s little hole-in-the-wall underneath the city. They wouldn’t find him in the featureless façade at the fringes of the royal district. And even if they did, there was Nyx, who fought daemons as if they were mere insects, who grinned at the darkness and reined it in hand, who held him through everything without him ever having to ask.

He knew his heart as if it were his own, as if he’d held it in his chest since the beginning of time. Arms folded around him, tanned and inked and scarred and marked by his love. He pressed him so close every time he held him. As if there was always too much space, even when there was none left between them.

“When you’re ready to come back from wherever you are, there will be coffee.”

He ended his long line of scruffy kisses at the hollow of his throat, huffed a hot sigh against his jaw and squeezed him back against his chest in a promise that he would feel him again soon, before climbing out of bed. Even in his absence, it was still warm. It still smelled like him. Smokey with the heat of the magic shared between them, spiced with the exotic flavors of his kitchen, a little woodsy with the remnants of the cologne he sometimes liked to wear just to drive Noctis a little wilder than he could on his own.

Dawn was just cresting over the horizon, a pale, thin blush between the skyscrapers. The sky was still black, dotted with stars, and the city was still alight with the adornments of winter décor. Insomnia was slowly becoming the City of Stars. The more that people returned, the more lights lit up the skyline, the more strings of festive bulbs he saw strung up in the windows, the more lampposts he saw bound up with them.

They used to celebrate Shiva with the lights. The tradition was an ancient one for appeasing the goddess with beautiful lights in exchange for a temperate winter. Ten years of darkness didn’t feel very benevolent though. He’d heard people in the streets saying that the lights were to celebrate just that: _light._ They’d gone so long without it. The season meant something different to them now.

People were closer than they used to be. He could see that in how quiet the streets were this time of morning. He remembered when the city never slept. He remembered wondering if they were as afraid of the dark as he was. But now, it was quiet. Not a horrible, vacant, empty silence. Just quiet. Soft. Gray and twinkling in the slow spread of light. He felt closer to it now, safer than he used to.

He looked at Nyx in the dawning gloom. Watched how the muscles of his back moved as he reached up into a cupboard for mugs. Watched the scars travel along the movement of his bones. Imagined what else he could do to that skin to try and conquer all those old hurts like he’d done for him, time and time again.

He found Nyx’s coat slung across the end corner of the bed and pulled it to his chest. Warm, rough, deep and dark. He fit his arms through the sleeves, and no matter how much age the Crystal had put him through, or how much his body changed, it was always a size too big. He never wanted to grow into it. He clutched the collar in his hands and pressed it to his mouth, breathing, tasting, closing his eyes and thanking whatever cosmic force had awarded him this decadence.

“There’s a sight I’ll never get tired of.”

Noctis opened his eyes to the molten silver of his stare, low and dark with a devotion that Noctis had never thought he would ever be good enough to deserve. Bared for him, as open to him as Noctis allowed himself to be with him, the tangle of his braids sliding along his naked shoulders.

“Likewise.”

And then there was that smile. The careless crook into his cheek. The roguish lift of his lips that made Noct’s blood set ablaze. Little things that made him _feel._ He gave him every desire he’d been too afraid to want. He was careful with them, patient, yet amorous. He kissed him like Noctis was everything he’d ever wanted and more. He touched him like he was something beautiful. He made him feel wanted with his smile, with his kiss, with his touch. He made him feel like his name was the only one meant to be drawn from his lips.

And it was _his_ name. His true name. Not his title, not his lineage, not anything but _Noct._ His little king. Just his. He was “Your Majesty” to everyone but Nyx. Here, he was just himself. And he was loved completely for it. And it was so _easy._ It was so easy to breathe, so easy to set aside the Crown at the door of Nyx’s apartment. So easy to forget his burdens and just made to feel human in the careful caress of his arms. Made to feel safe and dangerous all at once.

And none of that had changed.

The whole world did, drastically, yet this simple refuge was still the same. It took a little effort, a little time, but it was still theirs. Still made for their voices, their bodies, their love. And yet, it always felt new. He was never sick of it, never wanted anything else that Nyx couldn’t give him. When he thought he’d lost it, when he thought he would never have this happiness, this purity of contentment again… He didn’t like to think about it. Nyx didn’t either.

“Come on, come back. There’s coffee, just like I promised.”

He lifted Noct’s hands, all lost in his over-sized sleeves, and wound his fingers around the warm mug. He swept a hand through his hair to find his eyes. He’d left it long for him. Nyx liked to pull. He liked to tease and tangle and make a mess of it for the whole world to see. There was nothing to hide from now.

Nyx settled beneath the covers, coffee at his lips, and Noctis just watched him for a moment. He found the little speckles of gray in his braids, the ghost of burns along the hollow of his eye that only Noctis could get close enough to see. Only he could remember the differences in his skin. Only he was allowed to know his sacrifices, the depths of his hurts, the details of how he loved him.

“What are you thinking about?” Nyx asked, his hand in his hair, petting along tireless, secret routes that only he would ever know.

“You know.”

He smiled. His smile. Their smile. And he kissed him, coffee and cayenne on his tongue. He always made his hotter. He was always an inferno, always warm to the touch, always hot against his skin, always made his blood boil like it was the first time.

Noctis carefully set his coffee on the little box of a bedside table behind Nyx, keeping his kiss as he moved. Nyx’s arm slid around his back, pressing him to sink against his chest while blindly trying to get his own coffee to safety. Noctis smiled and helped him, sliding a hand along his arm to guide his cup to the table and angle him down to the mattress once it was securely steaming away beside his own mug.

“Did you wake up early just so we would have time for more of this?” Nyx chuckled against his lips.

His hands teased beneath the hem of his coat, encircling Noct’s hips and pulling him flush against him. The lean planes of his abdomen fit into place along his, chest fit to chest, scars old and new kissing as sweetly as they kissed each other.

“Maybe this is your gift,” Noctis intoned, leveling a hooded stare at him. He stretched his arms along the pillows on either side of his head, feeling as lazy and languid and loved as a kitten as Nyx stroked idly down his hips and along his thighs and back up his sides and everywhere he could reach. “Maybe I thought it best not to share it with the whole Citadel when we go back to celebrate later.”

“You’re truly a wise and just king.”

There were gifts to exchange and a feast to indulge and lights to admire when the rest of the city awakened. He had raiment to don and some toasts to make. There would be as much ceremony as there would be reveling, but he didn’t dread it so much as he used to. He wasn’t as afraid to be seen as once upon a time. Still… it was hard to get out of bed nowadays.

Noctis kissed him again… and again… and one more time for good measure, gently squeezing him between his thighs and cradling his head in his arms and trading breathy, coffee sighs for every slow, torturous touch.

“Is this going to be our new tradition?” Nyx gasped quietly when he was allowed to breathe. “Morning of the Feast of Lights, just you and me and coffee?”

“I could get used to that if you can.”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to you.”

He smiled still, smooth and loose and following it with a hand drifting up Noct’s back, cupping his neck, his jaw, thumbing back a lock of hair from along his eye.

Sometimes he was afraid that none of it was real. That he’d felt too good, been touched too much, been so ardently loved that it couldn’t be true. He could never be this complete. He could never be brave enough to let someone venture into the parts of himself he was too afraid to show himself. He was only that young and alone and afraid of himself not that long ago, ten years never felt in between. It had only been little more than a year for him since the first night. A lot had changed in little more than a year. And more was still the same.

Like slow, soft, scruffy lips against his lips. Always his knight in the dark. Always his little king.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm feeling sentimental so, before I lose my nerve and in case the narrative didn't convey it enough, this is my small thank you for making this year of nyxnoct a really good one. This small sense of community was something I didn't know that I needed and I'll always appreciate the enthusiasm and support from readers and content creators for this tiny ship. I'm going to be stuck on these two for a long while still and hope to bring you fresh, wholesome content throughout the new year too - and plenty more christmas presents before the end of this one. Thank you, friends! I hope you've enjoyed :)


End file.
